An explosion at a small hotel located near a police station in northeastern Kenya killed four people, including three officers, and wounded several others on Monday, authorities said.
The blast happened in Mandera town, which is on the border with Somalia and was said to have been caused by an improvised explosive device that had been planted at the hotel and was detonated as a crowd of people sat down to eat breakfast, police said.
Mandera police chief Samwel Mutunga said that two of those wounded were in critical condition and would be flown to the capital, Nairobi. Others were admitted at a hospital in Mandera.
“We had a total of 15 people injured and in the process of taking some to hospital, including police officers, we lost two at that particular moment, one officer and one civilian. As they were being attended to, we lost two more police officers,” Mutunga said.
Investigators have blamed east Africa-based extremist group Al-Shabab for the attack. The group, which hasn’t claimed responsibility for the explosion, has staged major attacks in Kenya and neighboring Somalia.
The last Al Shabab attack in Mandera was the kidnapping of two Cuban doctors in April 2019.
Melissa Enoch
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